


Silly Little Hearts

by Charlie9646



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aurors, Bar, Coming Out, Confessions, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Remus being snarky, discovery of feelings, oblivious boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 12:14:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29418480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charlie9646/pseuds/Charlie9646
Summary: Good little pureblood men married a woman and had a son as soon as they could.Good little pureblood men didn’t take dangerous jobs.But most of all, good little pureblood men didn’t grab Lucius Malfoy by the shirt collar in the street and shout “Death Eater”.But the truth was James never would be any one of those things, even if sometimes he wished he could be, and he had grabbed bloody Malfoy by the collar and called him a Death Eater.Or when James Potter decides to tell his best friend he loves him.
Relationships: Remus Lupin/Severus Snape, Sirius Black/James Potter
Comments: 11
Kudos: 33
Collections: Love Fest 2021





	Silly Little Hearts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frumpologist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frumpologist/gifts).



> Thank you meditationsinemergencies for Betaing this.
> 
> #LF2021 #TeamVenus

James Potter had loved Sirius Black for as long as he could remember, but the very idea of telling him that? It turned his stomach into a pile of knots. 

Surely the other man didn’t feel the same; his friend always had at least one woman hanging off his arm and usually more than that. More than enough times in their last year at Hogwarts there had been a witch sneaking off while the sun just barely peeked through the curtains. That seemed like a lifetime ago and yet it had only been a year at most. Things had changed since then, their biggest worries were no longer about classes, teasing witches, and pushing Snape’s buttons just to watch him explode—no matter how much fun the latter was. 

He had the weight of family history, and him being the only Potter below the age of seventy keeping him from sharing his feelings with Sirius. 

The facts were stark like a crisp line of ink: 

Good little pureblood men married a woman and had a son as soon as they could. 

Good little pureblood men didn’t take dangerous jobs. 

But most of all, good little pureblood men didn’t grab Lucius Malfoy by the shirt collar in the street and shout “Death Eater”. 

But the truth was James never would be any one of those things, even if sometimes he wished he could be, and he  _ had _ grabbed bloody Malfoy by the collar and called him a Death Eater. 

He knew it in his bones, but, unfortunately, he did not have the proof necessary to do anything about it. Malfoy was someone in a position of power and James’ equal, whether he wanted to admit it or not. He could nearly smell it on the man, the same thing that he had always known about Snape, that darkness that seemed to be just under their skin waiting to explode or to drag others down with them. 

No one else believed him but Sirius. Honestly, even Remus and Peter thought they were both crazy. Lily had distanced herself from him after graduation, and part of him was grateful for it. They were perfect for one another on paper, but in practice, that wasn’t the case. 

Maybe it was that they were too different or maybe it was simply that Lily Evans was the wrong gender, but the reasons themselves mattered little in the end. What was done was done, and there was nothing else that could be done about it. You couldn’t unring a bell as much as his father tried to push him to do just that, but even without Lily he would have to marry someone. One day he would have to give in to his parents, even though he desperately wished he never had to do that. Ifhe played his cards right, he knew he could stretch it out. Make sure it wasn’t anytime soon, and maybe then he could find a witch who was also not interested in a typical marriage, and they could be each other’s keys to the life they wanted.

Or maybe he should just let go of that, move on and forget about it all. James was actively putting the cart ahead of the horse, and there was a rather stark problem to all his plans. 

Sirius Orion Black was as straight as a board. 

James sat there next to his friend on a barstool listening to him flirt with the bartender. She was pretty, if women were your thing, with strawberry blond curls piled high on her head and sage green eyes. She sat a glass of whisky in front of Sirius, smiling as she did. James fought the unexpected urge to snarl at her. Sirius wasn’t hers, and she could not have him. But he wasn’t his either. James Potter could not stake a claim to his friend no matter how much he desired to do so, no matter how much his heart yearned to. It was not his right or place, and that fact was like a kick in the teeth and a punch to the gut. 

“Would you like another glass of whisky?’ the woman asked, looking Sirius in the eyes as she did. 

“No, but my friend does,” he said, cocking his head to the side and then leaned forward adding, “And I am not interested in anything more than whisky from ya, lass, sorry to say.” 

She did not even wait for James to say whether or not he wanted another drink. She yanked his glass from his grasp, poured two fingers of whisky, and shoved the glass back at him with an angry sigh. After a moment, the woman hissed, “The good ones are either gay, taken, or both.” 

James felt the tips of his ears go hot and his hands shook as he reached out for his drink. He fought the urge to tug at his wild and too-long hair. The unmanageable, untamed curls were the bane of his existence most days. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, and he gently pushed them up. 

“So, Jamie, how have you been?” Sirius asked, as if nothing had happened and to him it surely didn’t mean anything. It was merely a woman he wasn’t interested in getting fussy. 

It felt like someone had stuck him under a bloody spotlight and that everyone was staring at him.. That Sirius, Merlin bless him, was the only oblivious one in the room. He didn’t see how his friend felt about him. He didn’t know James wanted to grab onto him and kiss him senseless, he didn’t know his friend wanted to tell him he loved him more than he had ever loved anyone before, and he never would.

_ It was better to be Sirius’ friend than nothing at all,  _ he thought bitterly. Even though it was like a punch to the gut, he got like this at times— everything that had been buried slowly rose to the top. He should just tell his friend how he felt, but then he might lose him, lose this and all that they could have together as this.

He decided in that instant he would tell Sirius, tell him the  _ whole _ truth, as rash as it might be. He couldn’t live like this anymore. He couldn’t pretend that he was someone he was not. This secret was like a wedge between them, and he was the one who had put it up. 

“I love you, Sirius,” James murmured. “I love you so much. I have since we were eleven, from the first moment I saw you, and I should have told you sooner, but I am just a bloody fool who couldn’t see what’s right in front of my face.” 

“I love you, too, Jamie,” Sirius said, reaching out and grabbing onto his shoulder. 

“I don’t think you understand me, Siri…” He choked out the words and wiped his nose as he did. “I…” His voice trailing off. 

Remus walked up then leaned against the bar and said, “You both are too dense to say this so I will do it for you. Sirius, James is in love with you. James, Sirius is in love with you. Now why don’t you two kiss and call it good, so you two can stop dancing around each like nifflers with something to hide. And, by the way, I am dating Severus, and no I don’t care what either of you think about it, got it?” He left them disappearing off to Merlin only knowing where but his words had changed everything. The statement about Snape didn’t sink in and blew past them. 

Remus seemed to know more about how they felt about each other than either of them knew. The friends would deal with the rest another day. 

“You… Want to be with me?” Sirius asked, his voice shaking. “Like really?”

“Yeah I do, but if you don’t want to lose you because of it.”

“You aren’t going to lose me. I thought I was going to lose you if I told you how I felt.” His friend looked at him with his blue eyes. They looked like sea glass, the kind he used to collect on the seashore as a child and hand to his mother. Sirius’ hair hung in loose waves past his shoulders. 

_ He’s beautiful,  _ James thought.  _ He’s so wonderful and he doesn’t even know it.  _

He turned on the barstool and faced his first friend, the man he was in love with, and the man James wanted to spend the rest of his life with. Without a thought, he found himself reaching out for Sirius, tangling his fingers into his hair and pulling him close. 

“Can I kiss you?” he questioned, realising he should wait for an answer before jumping straight in, looking up at the other man as he did. His heart swelled with the hope he had long ago thought was impossible. Flashes of a life they could have together flashing behind his hazel eyes. 

_ The two of them getting their first flat together. The two of them kissing, making love to one another, and getting married. Children. Maybe they would adopt them, perhaps someone like Andromeda would help them, or they would simply do what James’ parents did and take in strays who needed them. He could see them now sitting on a front porch hand in hand, old and grey… Together. Always.  _

James wanted that every single bloody bit of it. Not the life his parents wanted for him and not the one the wizarding world deemed that he needed to live. He had spent his whole life breaking the rules, what was one more to be truly happy? His parents would understand just as they always did. But this wasn’t his step to take, James’ cards were on the table and it was now Sirius’ turn. And yet he couldn’t help but ask, “Can I, Siri?” 

Instead of answering, Sirius crashed their lips together, and James knew it was the start of something extraordinary. 

_ Hearts are wild creatures; that’s why our ribs are cages. _


End file.
